Saturday, June 28, 2008

In the eighth grade I was voted "Person Most Likely to Succeed Elvis". In part this great honour was given because I had all the girls' (moms) swooning with "Can't Help Falling In Love" at the year-end concert in the gym at my small farming community elementary school.

In part it was the sideburns. They weren't really sideburns, I just had really shaggy seventies-kid hair and the kids in my class hated me (because their moms loved me). To retaliate and establish my coolness for all time I tormented the foreign kid about his unholy relationship with his sister until he was driven insane and attacked me. It was completely unfair of me, and I deserved the shots he got in on me before the teachers broke it up. I just needed someone else to be weirder than I was for the little redneck kids' amusement; I wanted to be a big fish, even if it was in the world's smallest pond.

Anyway, in my own head for a while I was all about the King, his music, his movies, biopics, fictionalizations of his life. I've seen "Heartbreak Hotel". Twice. And right now what stands out for me is the scene in "Great Balls of Fire" in which a newly-enlisted Elvis stops by Sun Records where Jerry Lee Lewis is recording hits and he says: "Take it all."

While I'm on vacation this week please don't let Jerry Lee take it all. He is the foreign kid.

19 comments:

last fourth of july we went to a party on the military base in town. they had a turkish elvis impersonator who had to be the worst elvis i have ever seen. and i am including my mom's cousin, marion, who has bedazzled all his undershirts with fake gemstones and now wears them everywhere he goes and still lives with his mom in that comparison. i'm just saying...

"Can't Help Falling In Love" is like crack for women. I swear to God. I almost married a stranger at a U2 concert when, during the encore, he leaned over and sang it in my ear. I'm sure we would have been very happy together.

Also, I would have come here and fawned all over you in your absence. Alas...

Dont know of you read a post I wrote the other week, but seriosuly I was at an Elvis Rest stop in middel of the Israeli Desert. An elvis diner, 20 foot elvis statue and all. What it was doing there- we will never know.

My husband's mom speaks of Elvis with this sort of sad reverence..like he was a member of the family that passed or something. JfK..not so much, but Elvis! Oh, THAT was beyond tragic. My husband remembers coming home and her laying on floor balling and sobbing for days.